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Confirming its earlier signals that it does not want to be a direct U.S. merchant acquirer, at least not yet, Visa Inc. plans to sell its portfolio of just over 9,000 U.S. e-commerce merchants to merchant processor Global Payments Inc. within the next two months. Atlanta-based Global divulged the …
Read More »PayPal Boss Thompson Decamps for Yahoo Just As Key POS Strategy Unfolds
PayPal Inc. on Wednesday lost its top executive just as the e-commerce processing giant has embarked on an ambitious strategy to handle transactions for brick-and-mortar stores. The departure of Scott Thompson, who has been PayPal’s president since 2008, also represents the second loss of a key executive at PayPal in …
Read More »Christmas Season Throws Spotlight on a Developing Trend Toward Digital Gift Cards
With Christmas day looming, retailers that issue digital gift cards, along with the vendors that supply them, are expecting a rush of last-minute purchases from shoppers who don’t have time to buy plastic cards. With e-cards flying out to the handsets of recipients at parties and in homes and offices, …
Read More »PayPal Runs a Brief Test in Sweden to Check out Cloud-Based NFC for POS Payments
In a move that could be seen as a precursor to mobile in-store payments using so-called cloud-based near-field communication (NFC), PayPal Inc. is testing an app that works with contactless stickers to allow consumers to access their PayPal accounts. The test, which is taking place at two stores in Stockholm, …
Read More »Dwolla’s New Instant Service Offers Immediate Cash For Impulse Purchases
Dwolla Corp. on Thursday unveiled a credit option it hopes will appeal to users who want faster funds availability for spot or impulse purchases. The option, known as “Instant,” is available now and allows users to borrow up to $500 that they can use right away rather than waiting two …
Read More »While NFC Continues to Lag, Starbucks’s Barcode System Logs 26 Million Mobile Payments
With mobile payments based on near-field communication (NFC) technology struggling to gain acceptance, new figures from Starbucks Corp. provide yet another example of how non-NFC systems are jumping to a fast lead in the mobile race. The Seattle-based coffee king this week reported that it has handled a total …
Read More »A Spat over NFC Keeps Google Wallet out of Verizon’s New Smart Phone
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Read More »Aiming to Jump-Start NFC with Banks, MasterCard Pours Money into mFoundry
In a move that could bring mobile payments based on near-field communication (NFC) to a wide array of financial institutions, MasterCard Inc. on Thursday announced it will provide its PayPass contactless-payment technology to mFoundry Inc., a Larkspur, Calif.-based vendor of mobile-banking software. MasterCard also invested an undisclosed sum in mFoundry, …
Read More »Having Started with Big Chains, Mobile Point of Sale Begins to Filter Down to Smaller Retailers
With the increasing popularity of smart phones and other mobile gadgets, major brick-and-mortar retail chains like Home Depot and Nordstrom began adopting mobile point-of-sale systems this year. And now smaller chains have begun equipping floor personnel with mobile devices that can scan merchandise and help customers look up out-of-stock …
Read More »Chase Issues First Airline EMV Card, Following Two Chip Cards Launched Earlier
n As with Chase’s previous two EMV deployments, the new Visa card will allow cardholders to sign for transactions rather than enter a PIN, which is a far more common form of authentication for EMV in markets like Europe and Canada where the smart card technology has been rolled …
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